


Drive Until You Lose the Road

by shinykari (meinterrupted)



Series: How to Save a Life [1]
Category: Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Community: trope_bingo, F/F, F/M, Hooker AU, M/M, Rape/Non-con References, Recreational Drug Use, Stripper AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-04-19
Packaged: 2017-12-08 22:33:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meinterrupted/pseuds/shinykari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"They found him. Some woman brought him into the ER at Coney Island Hospital, and he's there. We found him."</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drive Until You Lose the Road

**Author's Note:**

> This is all Beardsley & Jackie's fault, and also Chris Evans', because bb!Chris looks too much like a desperate hooker for me to not write this. Thanks to [name redacted] for being my consultant on all things drug-related. Any remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title is from "How to Save a Life" by The Fray.
> 
> **While I believe none of the archive warnings apply to this story, it does contain recreational drug use, mentions of non-consensual sex, and prostitution, which in the framework of this story is always dubiously-consensual at best. Please read responsibly.**

"Jess, give that here," Carol said, her words slurred slightly as she plucked the bowl and the lighter from Jess's hands. 

Jess laughed and leaned back against Carol's chest, eyes only half open. "Good stuff, yeah? Danny's got a hook-up with someone in, I don't know, fucking China or somewhere, gets the best shit. And he gave me a discount."

Steve watched as Carol put the flame to the bowl and inhaled steadily with her thumb on the intake. She pulled it away from her lips and held her breath for a long moment, before tilting her head back and blowing the smoke up toward the ceiling. "Yeah, yeah, I'll give him props next time I see him," Carol said, leaning over Jess to hand the bowl and lighter to Steve. "So long as he keeps his zen fingers off my girl."

Jess smiled and leaned up to Carol for a sloppy kiss. "You know your fingers are the only ones I like, baby. The others I just put up with for the cash."

"Damn right," Carol said, deepening the kiss and using Jess's dark hair to manhandle her into a better position. 

Steve closed his eyes and took a long hit, trying to soothe the aching emptiness inside him where Bucky should be. It had been almost six months since Bucky left with that Russian john, and Steve still couldn't forgive himself for not getting the prick's name. The cops didn't give a shit about a "junkie fag hooker"--a phrase that had gotten one fat fuck a punch in the face and Carol a night in lock-up; it seemed the only one who did was Sam Wilson, the only decent social worker in the neighborhood. Sam had believed Steve when he swore Bucky wouldn't just leave, and he still asked about Bucky when he did his weekly rounds, passing out free condoms and clean needles. He'd promised to keep an eye out for Bucky, and for once, it didn't feel like lip service.

Steve took another long hit while the girls were busy making out, blowing the smoke out of his nose lazily. His cell started ringing from somewhere deep in the couch, and he set the bowl and the lighter on the makeshift coffee table to search for it. Steve got his hand around it and flipped it open. "Yeah?" he said, putting a throaty rumble in his voice, in case it was a customer.

"Steve?" There was a note of panic in Sam's voice, and Steve sat up straight, cradling the phone to his ear. "They found him. Some woman brought him into the ER at Coney Island Hospital, and he's there. We found him."

Steve couldn't speak right away, couldn't say anything, just closed his eyes and thanked the God he'd never really stopped believing in that Bucky was alive. "I'll be there as soon as I can," he said, feeling tears welling up in his eyes. "Thank you, Sam, thank you so much."

"I'm going to stay here, make sure they don't try to discharge him, so I'll see you when you get here," Sam said.

"Okay," Steve breathed. 

He snapped the phone shut and looked up to see Jess and Carol staring at him, hope in their eyes. "Bucky?" Jess whispered.

Steve nodded, letting out a whoop of relieved laughter as Jess and then Carol pounced on him. "He's alive, he's alive, he's alive," he chanted, feeling the horrible emptiness inside him slowly fill with hope.

While Steve and Jess put together a bag of clothes for Bucky, Carol called Danny and convinced him to cover her shift at the club. Jess wasn't supposed to dance that night, and Steve's "job" offered the ultimate in flexibility, so within twenty minutes they were on the subway headed for the hospital. Steve called Sam once they were back on street level and got Bucky's room number, letting them waltz past the disapproving woman at the front desk.

Sam was in the hallway leaning against the wall when they walked up. Before Steve could dart into the room, Sam stopped them. "Steve, wait. Bucky isn't--he's hurt pretty bad."

Steve blinked in confusion. "What do you mean?" he asked slowly, feeling his stomach begin to churn.

He felt Carol's hand on his arm. "Steve," she said, her voice low and soft. "Don't play ignorant. You know what happens to people like us. He's been _somewhere_ for the past six months."

"And that somewhere wasn't a spa," Jess chimed in, wrapping her arms around Carol's waist from behind and resting her cheek on her shoulder. "Steve, we gotta be prepared."

"He's still Bucky," Steve argued, fighting against the dread that was suddenly replacing all the hope he'd walked in with. "He'll always be Bucky." 

"Steve," Carol begged, but he shook off her hand and pushed past Sam and into the hospital room.

Inside, Bucky lay motionless on the bed, his skin waxy and pale and his hair longer than Steve ever remembered seeing it. His left arm was in a cast from the elbow to the wrist, with a brace of some sort around the upper part. His face and the rest of his exposed skin was covered in bruises, some yellowed with age, others purple and new. Steve felt raw and longed to wrap himself around Bucky and never let go, but before he could take another step, a red-haired woman was between him and Bucky's bed with a slim knife at his neck. Steve froze and raised his hands in surrender.

"Don't touch him," she growled, her words tinged with the barest hint of a Russian accent, "or I'll slit your throat."

"I'm not here to hurt him," Steve said. "He's my--he's my friend."

The woman narrowed her eyes at him, but slowly dropped the knife. "You're Steve," she said, licking her lips and settling herself back into the chair at Bucky's bedside. "Dmitri spoke of you, in the beginning."

"Dmitri?"

She shrugged. "He wouldn't give them a name, so they gave him one of theirs. But in the ring, they called him the Winter Soldier, because he was fierce like the Russian winter," she said with a grimace.

"The ring?" Steve asked, looking up at the ceiling to keep his emotions in check. "You mean the underground fights the Russian mafia runs, don't you?"

The woman met his eyes for a moment, then looked away. "Yes. We both fought for our lives in the Red Room. Dmitri was--" She swallowed. "He always won. Until he didn't." Steve shuffled around to the other side of Bucky's bed and sat in the provided chair. He reached out to brush a lock of hair away from Bucky's face, but Bucky whimpered in his drugged sleep and flinched away. "They have doctors, but he was too badly broken to fix this time," she said, and Steve could hear the emotion in her voice.

Steve reached across Bucky's chest and offered his hand to the woman. After a moment's hesitation, she took it, her face closed off. "I'm Steve," he said, squeezing her hand in a gentle shake.

The woman flashed him a tight smile. "Natalia."

"Thank you, Natalia, for saving him."

She pulled her hand back and folded it in her lap. "What is his name? He wouldn't tell me, not even after..." Natalia trailed off and dropped her gaze to the floor. "I don't think he even remembered any more."

"His name is James Barnes," Steve whispered, "but I called him Bucky."

"James," she repeated, rolling the word around in her mouth. "It is a good name, for a good man."

"Yeah," Steve said, staring down at Bucky's too-pale face. "A good man."

**Author's Note:**

> I have a vague idea for a sequel (happy hooker family threesomes!) but I don't know if I'll actually ever write it.


End file.
